Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park

Dealing with perspective on this shot was a bear and I think I may have the best of a bad job

here. Still, I like the hard light and hyper contrast of the building's ornamentation. I'll post a

copy of the raw shot so that you can see the perspective adjustments first hand. Your

thoughts on whether this works will be appreciated.

Here's the raw shot, after optics correction in DxO.

IMHO I think the correction of the perspect is well done. In the orginal the building looks like it is falling over and you don't get a sense of height. The corrected image also has a lot of strong lines running up the edge of the frame which seems to help compositionally. I love your conversion with all the rich tones in it. The way you go from the whites to blacks give this some nice dimension.

 

Impressive to say the least.

 

Don

Agree with the comment above, work with perspective is very well done. And excellent B&W, the contrast and tones are just great. Very good exposure, no blown-out highlights, and skilled job with this difficult dynamic range here.

 

Cheers

Carsten

Don touched the points that made the difference, Patricia.The perspective correction made it look right and not "falling" backward.The B/W conversion fits the monumental appearance much better than the color imo, in this case .The texture looks well accentuated. The outside light vs.the inside of the ark gives it a good feeling of 3D.Thanks for the original file that helps evaluate the changes done. Pnina

I am grateful for your input. I had to resort to using the warp quadrants in "skew" to get this to look at all normal. I really should invest in a tilt shift lens and learn how to use it.

I agree with the others that you've done a marvelous job of correcting the perspective. Congratulations!

 

I'm intrigued, however by your comment that "I really should invest in a tilt shift lens and learn how to use it." I find it fascinating that working in PhotoShop has changed the way I take photographs. This mater of perspective is a case in point: will the ability to fix major problems in an image such as this change the way in which you take such photographs in the future?

 

Sometimes I find myself thiking, "oh, not a problem, I can fix that in Photoshop". At other times I think, "this will make a nice element of PS composite..."

 

Fascinating.

 

Thanks for lettimg me blather.

Pat, exceptionally good work in your perspective correction. This now stands straight and tall as intended. The details on the inner side of this arch are particularly beautiful, especially as seen in shadow. I can see why you were attracted to this. Your exploration of the tonal qualities here is very rewarding...

Rich: Thank you for your comments. I had a look at your portfolio and it is terrific! I'll go back for a longer look, for sure. Since I can see that you know your way around PS, I think you'll agree that while almost anything is possible, it all comes at a price, usually in image quality. I'm thinking about the tilt shift lens because there is a real loss of detail whenever you muck around with perspective in PS. Better to get it right in the shot than make the quality sacrifice afterwards. You know, the usual blather :)

 

David, as always, thanks for your thoughtful comments. The bandshell is a beautiful but worn and dog-eared structure in the center of the Park. I need to go back with tripod in hand (and with a lower sun) for more interior detail shots. The inside of the shell is a curious mix of grandeur and decrepitude, which makes it a great subject.

I love these sorts of grand-structure-heavy-red-filter-dark-sky B&W images. Pat, fine job with the perspective, and in the B&W version the light striking the front of the arch is majestic. Also like the detail inside the arch.

I agree with all commants above, nice perspective correction, and the BW works better.

 

Did you used calculations here too?

 

 

Nice textures in this pic!

Gus: B&W via calculations. Thanks for your comments.

Dual RAW conversions to extend dynamic range -- humbly, what does that mean? I assume that one image was converted twice with different exposures?

So I also need to explore calculations methods for BW conversions.

Your stuff is great!

Frank

Frank: Exactly right. Two different raw conversions of the same raw file to blend for extended dynamic range.